Q: Name a major U.S. city in two words. Change the first letter of the first word and the next-to-last letter of the second word. Then rearrange all the letters to name the people who live in this city. What city is it?The difference is 18.
Edit: The letters you remove are Sc (Scandium, element 21) and you replace them with Li (Lithium, element 3). The difference is 18.
A: SAN FRANCISCO --> CALIFORNIANS
Occasional reader, first-time poster — and my first challenge for NPR. Hope you enjoy solving it, cheers!
ReplyDeleteNice puzzle, Sid! It sounded harder to solve than I found it to be.
DeleteCongratulations, Sid. It is always great to see an NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle-maker posting a comment on Blaine's excellent puzzle blog.
DeleteLegoWhoPredictsThatSidWillHaveNoTroubleAtAllSolvingTheFirst"RiffingOffShortzAndSivakumar"PuzzleOnThisComingThursday'sPuzzleria!
Sid, welcome! Nice twist.
DeleteNice puzzle Sid, thank you!
DeleteThank you, Sid. That was challenging. Well done and welcome.
DeleteThank you, Sid! Just the right amount of challenge (and *not* the first place that popped into mind!) --Margaret G.
DeleteThanks all for the very kind comments. Glad you enjoyed it! Hope to have another puzzle for you sometime.
DeleteFirst place that popped into mind.
ReplyDeleteFor me as well
DeleteSame here.
DeleteU.S. city demonyms difficult...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm using an obvious city, but I end up with an estra letter.
ReplyDeleteSorry, an exstra letter.
DeleteSame here. Also, if I have the correct city, there's some debate about the spelling of the demonym amongst natives.
DeleteHaving an extra letter would imply that you do not have the correct answer. I know what city you mean, and I do not think it is correct.
DeleteI can verify that this is not the correct city. No comment on whether it's an intentional red herring. :)
DeleteIt's back to the drawing board for me.
DeleteIf you end up with that extra letter, sit down, have a drink, perhaps it will come to you.
DeleteThank you.
DeleteI was sure I had the correct answer, but this thread led me to re-read the instructions to discover I had changed the wrong letter in the first word. I swallowed the red herring, hook line and sinker! Now I am clueless.
Deleteif you end up in the wrong city, try solving the puzzle in Binary, which may lead you to the correct city.
DeleteBlaine, where's the blog administrator for self-obliteration?
ReplyDeleteMy clue is TMI?
DeleteYes. Took me right to the answer. Maybe we all know each other too well.
DeleteOkay, hopefully it's better obfuscated now?
DeleteYes. Thanks!
DeleteMusical clue: Tchaikovsky.
ReplyDeleteI could clue a different artist, but the name alone would be TMI.
DeleteAn alternative demonym for Californians is "Prune Pickers"—which led me to the Sugar Plum Fairy.
DeleteHaven't solved it yet, but in my searching I was surprised to learn that people from Las Vegas don't eat animal products. :)
ReplyDeleteI'll follow Blaine's lead: the difference I got is 30.
ReplyDeleteYou sure it's not 52?
DeleteCrito, I got your clue of statehood dates, SC (1788) and IL (1818) having a difference of 30 years. John, I'm thinking you had the elements Cs (55) and Li (3) to get your difference, yes?
DeleteThis gets interesting. I have 10 different cities so far where I can derive a word by anagramming the letters, with two wild cards. However, none of the answers gives me an aha moment. In fact, some of the answers would be downright insulting, so they are clearly not the correct answer. I'll share some of the more interesting ones on Thursday. In the meantime, I'm still looking.
ReplyDeleteJAWS, looking forward to your anagrams.
DeleteI like this puzzle. This place makes me think of a couple of well known teammates - one whose name conjures up a different state of mind; another whose name would be associated with a grocery product that’s indigenous to this location.
ReplyDeleteRemove the first letter of the first word in the city and the second-to-last letter of the second word. Replace the last letter of the first word, the first letter of the second word, and the new third-to-last letter of the second word. You can rearrange the letters to get another place that has these people.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteSan Francisco->An Franciso->Am Eranctso->Sacramento, which also has Californians.
DeleteGot another parachute question for you, skydiveboy: The NASA spokesperson on their streaming coverage this morning said the main chute on the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule opened early (at 20,000 feet, rather than the planned 5,000) after reentry, which, he said, explains why it touched down a couple of minutes earlier than expected.
ReplyDeleteI would have thought that spending more time descending slowly under the main chute, rather than quickly under the drogue, would make it touch down later rather than sooner. Did the spokesperson just misspeak?
jan,
DeleteI read your question post and tried to locate a video of it landing, but no joy there. I saw photo of what looked to me like a single round white and orange parachute appearing to be of the landing, but I could not tell for sure if it was it or not. Do you have a link to a video? I also could not find anything saying it landed earlier, but just that it opened earlier.
You are right about the rate of descent being opposite of what you heard. It would cause it to take longer to reach Earth if it opened early.
Here's the NASA video of the landing. The main chute deploys around 48 minute in. It's quite a bit later that the narrator "explains" the early landing.
Deletejan,
DeleteWell, I watched the canopy bit, but the guy who was talking seemed to say it opened at 5K, but it looked like it may have been higher. Hard to tell because there was nothing to see on the ground to give perspective. I did not look for where he later said anything about it opening early. Do you know about what time on the video that occurs? I did hear him say the parachute did not seem to be swinging. He was wrong about that. It had no steering modifications, so it had to swing in order to burp trapped air. I could see this clearly, and it was exactly as expected.
Yeah, it was not a steerable chute. NASA reported elsewhere that the main chute deployed around 20,000 feet, instead of the planned 5,000.
DeleteThe math doesn't work, though: The video repeatedly refers to the descent velocity of the capsule under the main chute as 11 mph. Reading the timestamp on the video, it took just 4.5 minutes from main deployment to touchdown. At 11 mph, that works out to a descent of just under 5000 feet, which is what they planned for.
Deletejan,
DeleteI timed the canopy ride at a little over 4 1/2 minutes. I have no idea the weight of the load, nor the canopy size, so hard to tell for sure, but I do not believe it opened high, at least nothing like 20K. I suspect it opened as planned. Those AADs are very reliable now.
Just saw your last post. You are correct in your analysis.
DeleteOr, at least, more reliable than spokespeople.
DeleteYou have to understand that an AAD is basically an altimeter, which is a barometer and depends on atmospheric pressure. They can now also be speed aware. The question is: was it pre-programmed years ago, or was there a method they could reset it from Earth? I am unaware of any newer improvements to these activation devices.
DeleteWhen I first read the puzzle, I was a little annoyed, but, since the first city I tried worked, I seems it's a matter of one's state of mind.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle also works if you change a different pair of letters in the city name. I guess they used the stated pair to avoid hinting at the length of the name.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly right. I also offered not to specify the locations of the changed letters at all, but WS declined — perhaps because it could open the door to other valid answers that aren't as interesting.
DeleteI wasn’t born there.
ReplyDeleteWhat does frozen water have in common with our Supreme Court? Feel free to post your answer.
ReplyDeleteFrozen water has no ethical standards?
DeleteNope, but I think I like your answer better than mine.
DeleteJust ice vs. Justice?
DeleteJust ice. You got it. Sorry, but I'm outta pins at the moment though.
DeleteDarn, I thought it was:
DeleteRich people buy a nice chunk when entertaining.
skydiveboy may be outta lapel pins (although he did have one, albeit briefly) but he will never run outta puns!
DeleteLegoNotIntendingToPanskydiveboyWhoLegoHopesWillPenSomePuzzles(IfHeHasNotAlreadyPennedThem)ThatLegoMayBeAbleToPublishSoonOnPuzzleria!
The answer to this week's puzzle has something in common with Berlin, Germany.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking more of the capital of the UK.
DeleteA book by Isabel Allende comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteI found this puzzle to be difficult and tedious. I think I got lucky, as I sort of solved this accidentally. Online anagram solvers will most likely not get you an answer. Also, the name for the inhabitants is very common and may be a starting point for a backwards solve, if you will.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHey, SDB (et al.);
ReplyDeleteDo you know why I'm listening to The Book of the Hanging Gardens today?
Because we always babble on?
DeletePerhaps because you prefer it to the Babylon NPR?
DeleteOkay, those are good.
DeleteBut, no, I was listening to it because (it's an Arnold Schoenberg composition) it is Atonal, and today was the Day of Atonement. Seems like you can Atone by means of Atonal music.
... Especially if you play the Atonal music fast.
DeleteMaybe I should sleep more. The correct answer hit me shortly after I woke up this morning.
ReplyDeleteAn argument can be made that the city has a connection to George Washington.
DeleteIf the changed letter were the third from the end instead of the second, I'd have a perfect answer. Wrong?
ReplyDeleteIf the (second) changed letter were the last instead of next-to-last, I'd have a perfect answer.
DeleteThis could have been a mildly challenging puzzle if it hadn't been dumbed down. There just aren't many major US cities in 2 words.
ReplyDeleteSeriously?
DeleteThen I must be dumber than dumb...I still haven't solved it.
DeleteThere's some out of the box thinking that makes this puzzle more challenging.
DeleteThanks WW. I'll keep trying.
DeleteI gave up. If I understand the puzzle correctly, the word or words formed by the anagramming are not a demonym so must therefore be something one may or may not know about the city and its residents.
DeleteScarlett, you are not dumb. You just haven't found the answer to this particular puzzle. As I noted elsewhere, the answer popped in my head all of a sudden. Before that happened, I had been looking at the puzzle in the wrong way. There's a bit of a trick to it.
DeleteThanks to WW's hint, I got out of jeopardy and in like flint.
DeletePaul: Don't you mean, In like Flynn? Errol Flynn
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californians_(TV_series)
DeleteI can't remember watching or even being aware of the existence of the show back in the day, but when I stumbled onto this yesterday, I noticed a couple of familiar names.
If it's a puzzle selected by Shortz it's got to be solvable by a relatively smart 5th grade kid. Given that there are only a couple of cities this could be. You just had to figure out how to make San Francisco or Los Angeles work. Honestly, I spent more time on Los Angeles.
DeleteRearrange the letters of the state, and get an animal and where you might find it.
ReplyDeleteAre there any leftover letters?
DeleteNo, there aren't any leftover letters.
DeleteOk, thanks.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI finally solved it, and I can now applaud Sid for a very clever puzzle! I wish more folks could enjoy the "aha" moment than probably will. Looking at the comments with hindsight, I have not figured out Blaine's numerology, but I really like Snipper's post.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lancek! Perhaps I should also mention there’s another teammate whose name is shared by a member of our Blainesville community (and by another noteworthy individual who plied a different trade in the puzzle’s location).
DeleteOver/Under is 800
ReplyDeleteI'm leaning on the under, given the number of contributors to this blog that have been struggling to find the answer.
DeleteQuestion (which may not be answerable on this blog): Is the definition of "major city" considered population over 100K or 200K? I've seen both parameters as I continue to work on this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteNo!
DeleteOk, I found another definition: Largest 50 cities as determined by lastest annual census update. That narrows it down alot. Still no luck. But I won't give up just yet.
DeleteScarlett, this is a major city by any definition. If you've been working on the puzzle for a while, you've almost surely considered it and rejected it. Your best strategy now is to reconsider. Good luck, because it's worth it!
DeleteThanks Lancek. Good thing I have thick hair, cuz I've been pulling it out. :)
DeleteI think venn you do it will be satisfying.
DeleteBased on a couple posts on here, I think I finally know the city. Now comes the hard part! (Although........technically Will is asking only for the city.)
DeleteFor a reason, yes?
DeleteI'm so happy! I finally got it! Very satisfying indeed. Thanks for everyone's encouragement.
DeleteOk, Inus makes me think my answer is correct, while some of the other responses make me think less so. Going with it, though!
ReplyDeleteWhat's in a name ?
ReplyDeleteWatson, a name.
DeletePuddin Tame
DeleteThanks all. Knowing there was a trick spared me from endlessly searching lists.
ReplyDeleteI knew some of us would struggle with this.
ReplyDeleteNow that housing prices have skyrocketed, are there more home moaners?
ReplyDeleteIs drivetrain an oxymoron?
ReplyDeleteAn oxymoron is the idiot driving the wagon train.
DeleteI thought it was someone who flunked out of Occidental.
DeleteBeen there. Nice place to visit. Wouldn’t want to live there.
ReplyDeleteAre people from San Francisco called Africa Onions?
ReplyDeleteUm...well...
DeleteThey are called many things, depending . . .
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteNo way!
DeleteTo borrow from Wordle, Phew! (Nice one, Sid!)
ReplyDeleteMy hope is that when all is said and done, Donald Trump will be fully and completely ex honor rated.
ReplyDeleteIf you start with the 2-letter city and remove a state abbreviation and add a different state abbreviation, and then anagram what's left, there's your answer. -- Margaret G.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that detail while attempting to decipher Blaine's clue, but it didn't get me very far. (Also, I think you meant "2-word" city, but the 2-letter state abbreviations were on your mind.)
DeleteWe had a similar idea. SC (South Carolina) = Sc (element 21), IL (Illinois) = Li (element 3). The difference is 18.
DeleteOops, yes - I did mean 2-word city. States were on my mind, what with SC and IL and CA. I also like Blaine's idea about using chemical elements. --Margaret G.
DeleteWhat do flesh-eating bacteria and Republican politicians have in common?
ReplyDeleteThey both have skin in the game?
DeleteClever answer, Scarlett, but the intended answer is:
DeleteEVERYTHING
That was my first thought: everything
DeleteYeah, it's pretty obvious isn't it? :-)
DeleteNecrotizing fasciitis vs. narcotizing fascists?
DeleteNot bad, jan.
DeleteSAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIANS
ReplyDelete"Nice twist" refers to the demonym group being larger than the city inhabitants.
"I know it will be satisfying venn you do." This refers to a Venn diagram showing residents of SAN FRANCISCO and CALIFORNIA.
Oops, Blaine, I thought your 213 clue referred to the area code for LA back in the early hours when I thought Los Angeles and Angelenos was the answer.
I liked your Venn clue!
DeleteAnd I also thought at first LA was the answer, but realized there's an extra letter.
I realized my 21-3 hint could have been misinterpreted as Los Angeles which is also home to Californians. So I changed it out of caution.
DeleteLike manna from heaven, seven heavenly puzzles featured on this week's Puzzleria! also shall free-fall lovingly from above. Our friend skydiveboy has created this September Septet that involves:
ReplyDeleteWeighty kin,
180-degree flips,
An Irish lass,
A "Eurocity,"
United Kingdom slang, and
Attila in Italy...
along with other other puzzling "hunnies"!
You can "catch" skydiveboy's skillfully crafted "skydiversions" starting sometime around Midnight PDT between Thursday and Friday, in the wee witching hours when weekly we upload Puzzleria!
Also on this week's menus:
* "One Dickens of a metro-mystery!" which is our Schpuzzle of the Week,
* a Celebratory Hors d’Oeuvre titled "A food-and-vessel festival,"
* a Commonality-of-Capitals Puzzle Slice titled “The Quad(ruplet) Cities,”
* a Scrabble-Legal Sea-Worthy Dessert titled "Synonyms expressing themselves," and
* 11 riff-offs of this week's NPR puzzle titled “Cal-i-fornee, the San Francisco state!,” including two riffs written by our friends Ecoarchitect and Tortitude (whose "Econfusions" and "Tortie's Slow But Sure Puzzles" are featured regularly on P!).
A total of 22 puzzles is what that comes to.
We welcome all to join us at Puzzleria, our "friendly-but-fiendish puzzle joint."
LegoWhoPromisesThat"There'llBePuzzlesFromHeavenForYouAndMe!"
SAN FRANCISCO (S and C are changed to I and L) = CALIFORNIANS
ReplyDeleteMy Hint:
"The answer to this week's puzzle has something in common with Berlin, Germany."
The California state flag and the Berlin, Germany city flag both prominently have a bear image in profile.
Who knew! I kept saying,, wait a minute, Arnold is Austrian..
DeleteSAN FRANCISCO -> CALIFORNIANS
ReplyDelete> Easier than I thought it would be. Hard to see a good clue, though.
... whether through the traditional fog or the newly popular wildfire smoke.
>> Musical clue: Tchaikovsky.
> I could clue a different artist, but the name alone would be TMI.
I doubt Blaine would allow me to mention Tony Bennett.
>> The answer to this week's puzzle has something in common with Berlin, Germany.
> I was thinking more of the capital of the UK.
London [Breed] is the mayor of SAN FRANCISCO
> Such frank bullshitt! [deleted] [How could this have led anyone to the answer?]
I don't know what that "sh" is doing there. I meant Frank Bullitt.
I enjoyed your (unfortunately deleted) story, 68Charger! This must have felt like your week!
Thanks Jan, I didn't think it was a BS clue. Bullitt made more sense!!
DeleteTMI, maybe...
It is fun watching that chase scene just to see the little mistakes, like the repeated shots of that green VW and the Charger losing more than four hubcaps!!
I understand they had to keep getting the Charger driver to back off, because it was always gaining on the slower Mustang.
DeleteI was enjoying the Bullitt bantering and was surprised to see it get removed. I was also confused about why the direct mention of San Francisco by J.C. was allowed to stay.
DeleteScarlett, I was wondering that too!
DeleteA movie that I always liked, with a good chase scene, was The Lineup (1958) . It too takes place in San Francisco. Not a bad car chase for the late 50's, and with no seat belts!
DeleteOne thing about the chase scene is that the stunt driver let his real life wife ride with him during the filming. At the height of the chase the '57 Plymouth narrowly avoids going off an unfinished bridge, scaring the daylights out of the wife. I thought the wife smacked her husband a good one when she settled down!!
The direct mention of San Francisco was clearly said by someone that didn't have the answer but I felt if I deleted the comment, it would have drawn attention to it. Similarly, I was originally okay with the references to the plot/goofs of the 1968 film Bullitt set in San Francisco until there was a poorly hidden reference to the main character Frank Bullitt.
DeleteAhem... my reference to Frank Bullitt was so well hidden that the guy who was talking about the movie didn't get it!
DeleteWell played, Jan!
DeleteI got it and that's what matters 😉
DeleteSAN FRANCISCO (S—> L + C—> I—> CALIFORNIANS)
ReplyDelete“I wasn’t born there.”
Personally true, but also a lyric from Eric Burdon and the Animals’ “San Franciscan Nights” (1967).
“Rearrange the letters of the state, and get an animal and where you might find it.”
CALIFORNIA —> LION + AFRICA
“[T]he state” was also a hint.
I first thought the answer to your riddle it was "Falcon" and "air", but I was left with an extra letter. Then I discovered "Falco" is a bird genus and that left "in air" to complete the answer. But lion and Africa is much better!
DeleteThanks, Scarlett. That hint was fun. Sometimes those anagrams just work out.
DeleteIsabel Allende's book: "Daughter of Fortune", leads the main character to California/San Francisco during the goldrush.
ReplyDeleteSan Francisco->Lan Francisio->Californians
ReplyDeleteSan Francisco -S -C +L +I --> Californians
ReplyDeleteEarlier this week I said, “Been there. Nice place to visit. Wouldn’t want to live there.” So many great places to see. But with the climate, and the cost, it’s not for me.
Maybe I missed it, but does anyone know what Blaine's original clue was about? Something like "ABC easy as 213."
ReplyDeleteElement 21=Sc(andium) is replaced by element 3=Li(thium). I didn't think it was a giveaway but WW read it as an area code (Los Angeles) which is also in California. TMI? I guess?
DeleteThanks Blaine. Makes sense, especially when combined with WW's explanation today after the deadline.
DeleteOh, that's interesting, Blaine! I interpreted your "A-B-C, easy as 2-1-3" hint to mean "reorder the letters A-B-C in the order 2-1-3," which yields "BAC," short for "Bay Area, California." Funny how different roads lead to the same destination.
DeleteLOL! And congrats on your puzzle getting selected. Hope you're working on your next submission because this one was both simple and challenging, if you didn't catch the trick.
Delete213 would have led me right to the area code!
DeleteSAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIANS
ReplyDeleteMy first clue was If you end up with that extra letter, sit down, have a drink, perhaps it will come to you. I was also first lured in by LOS ANGELES. My clue was based on the fact that the main highway out of Los Angeles, to Northern California, is I5, also called the Grapevine.
When a few had still not solved, I wrote that if you end up in the wrong city, try solving the puzzle in Binary, which may lead you to the correct city.
The other two main roads from Southern to Northern California are 101 and 1. And writing anything in Binary would give you a lot of 10111011 etc.
Anyway, fun puzzle. I've lived in both cities, but New York is home for me.
We thought of SF first of course since we live near there but dismissed it as an answer because it was too obvious! We never solved the puzzle as a result! ha!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed Snipper's clue about the teammates. I'm assuming he was referring to the 49ers and Rice (as in Rice-A-Roni the San Francisco treat) and Montana. Am I right?
ReplyDeleteYes Scarlett - those are exactly who I was referring to. And my additional comment in response to Lancek’s shout out to me above was referring to Dwight Clark, Will Clark and Clark a Pseudonym (aka “Cap”)!
DeleteR.I.P. Michael Gambon
ReplyDeleteSad how his death is getting Trumped in the news today.
DeleteAs noted by many others by now, the correct answer is San Francisco, and Californians.
ReplyDeleteI had posted a clue that "An argument can be made that the city has a connection to George Washington." Interstate 80 has one end in San Francisco, and the other end is in Teaneck, NJ. If you stay to the left at the NJ end, you feed into the express lanes to the George Washington Bridge.
I had commented to Scarlett that there is a trick to the puzzle. All week, I really wanted to say something like the city is a subset of the demonym, but I figured that would be TMI.
Finally, I had noted that I had found a bunch of cities, with populations over 100,000, where I could anagram to a word, following the rules of the puzzle. Here is a list. While some of these entries would clearly be offensive to the city residents, no offense is intended here, because am not describing the residents, just pointing out anagrams:
Los Angeles - Sloganeers
Saint Paul - Placating
New Orleans - Wholesaler
Baton Rouge - Treasonous
San Antonio - Annotation
Carson City - Crayonists
Las Vegas - Savagest
Fort Worth - Overthrow
San Diego - Debonair
El Paso - Gallop
St Louis - Foulest, Locusts, Loudest, Outlaws
Des Moines - Demonists
Newport News - Spleenworts
Cedar Rapids - Disparagers
Palm Bay - Abysmal
I live in St. Louis now ... these are all hilarious. Definitely sharing with my fellow St. Louisans.
DeleteOf course, I was using an anagrammer to find most of these, and the one I was using does not find proper nouns, capitalized words, etc., so it missed Californians. In the meantime, I had looked at San Francisco and San Franciscans, and noticed it didn't work.
DeleteCongratulations on designing a puzzle with a nice twist, and that involves an anagram, while resisting most anagramming tools!
I guess I can now reveal that the original puzzle idea was actually the LOS ANGELES -> ANGELENOS transformation. I was going to submit the following to Will:
ReplyDelete"Name a major U.S. city. Change the first letter and delete the last letter. Then move the first three letters to the end to name the people who live in this city. What city is it?"
But, realizing that this letter shift was probably too easy (as almost all demonyms are based on some substring of the city's name), I modified the puzzle instructions to say "rearrange all the letters." In the process of checking if there were any alternate cities that satisfied the new anagram condition, I noticed the much more intriguing possibility of SAN FRANCISCO -> CALIFORNIANS. I concluded that, clearly, we needed to cancel our trip to LOS ANGELES and jet off to SAN FRANCISCO instead. :)
Not sure how many solvers appreciate this sort of look behind the curtain, but maybe some of you will! In my crossword construction, I follow a very similar process: find one example of a "letterplay" curiosity, then search for other possible examples, sometimes discovering an even more interesting relationship elsewhere (and ditching the original).
Good puzzle this week!
DeleteSid – Thanks for a solid puzzle and the insights into its creation. I think I now understand how the strange instruction to rearrange ALL the letters crept in, even though not every letter moved from its original position. I confess that I did not solve this one, because I made it harder than it was. I looked for cities with two-word nicknames such as Motor City and Sin City and unusual state demonyms like Hawkeye, Hoosier and Cheesehead.
DeleteGreat insights into a great puzzle-maker's mind! Thanks for taking us through your creative process, Sid, and for sharing it with us on Blaine's wonderful blog.
DeleteHere is one of 11 "riff-offs" of your puzzle that appears on the recently-uploaded edition of my "not-as-wonderful-as-Blaine's" blog, ("Puzzleria!"):
ENTREE #7
Name a major U.S. city, in two words, that contains ten letters. Transpose the words. Remove the space.
Replace two consecutive letters of this result with a sinlgle letter. (The two consecutive letters are the first and third letters of a nearly half-century-old late-night television show abbreviation; the single letter is the second letter in that abbreviation.)
The result is the name of people who live in this U.S. city. What city is it, and what are its residents called?
LegoLambdaPurveyorOfPuzzleria!
I learned this week that long time TV Handyman Ron Hazelton died way back in late April. He started out in San Francisco and later moved to the East Coast.
ReplyDeleteI just happened to go to his website the other day to look up a home repair hint and found out about his passing. Otherwise I'd probably never known.
I first remember him doing a show where he visited a SF cable car repair shop and exploring what all went in to keeping them running. That episode ended with him operating a cable car and promptly stripping the clutch mechanism! They never explained how serious it was :) !!
But he was always friendly, a good talker and knew a lot of answers to home improvement problems!
RIP former SAN FRANCISCO mayor and CALIFORNIANS' Senator, Dianne Feinstein.
ReplyDeleteThis week's challenge comes from listener Jim Humphreys, of Northampton, Mass. Name a well-known U.S. city in four syllables. The first two syllables, with a letter inserted, will name an animal — that might be found in the place named by the last syllable. What city is it?
ReplyDeleteAlready solved. Waiting for Blaine...
ReplyDeleteEasy peasy
ReplyDeleteAfter being stumped last week, I was in the mood for an easy puzzle.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle is really cute, but it’s unlikely you’ll see this animal while on a hike.
ReplyDeleteNot the first time this city has been a Sunday Puzzle answer.
ReplyDeleteNor the second.
DeleteEasy as 1-2-3.
ReplyDelete